The revelation, which Amnesty International described as "shocking" came to light when the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) realised a mistake had been made on a previous ruling.

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In its original ruling on 22 June the IPT had said the communications of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the South African charity Legal Resources Centre had been illegally intercepted and accessed by GCHQ. The IPT has now confirmed it was Amnesty and not the Egyptian group that was targeted.

The error was down to a mistake in the numbering of the complaints, according to The Intercept, with GCHQ pointing out the error the to IPT.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's secretary general slammed GCHQ's actions as "outrageous", adding that the actions belonged in the "domain of despotic rulers".

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“How can we be expected to carry out our crucial work around the world if human rights defenders and victims of abuses can now credibly believe their confidential correspondence with us is likely to end up in the hands of governments?"

The IPT's email revealing the mistake did not give any details of what information GCHQ obtained about Amnesty International, what was done with or or how long it was held for. Shetty said GCHQ's illegal actions, which only came to light as it held onto the information for too long, highlighted the "gross inadequacies" in the UK's surveillance laws.

Amnesty said there was an "urgent need for significant legal reform" and an independent inquiry into how and why the UK has been spying on human rights organisations.